April 11, 2005

So, I took Google Q and A for a real quick spin just now but there's a few things I don't get. I tried, who is peter norvig?" Surprise! I got an answer. But at the beginning of it it says "Property". I didn't know how to interpret that. I guess they're trying to say that the content string (all of 16 words) is property of the attributed source, Wikipedia. I think this could be worded differently.

"Who is Jerry Garcia?" worked just fine, though. Again, Wikipedia was the chosen source. Kind of a no-brainer since it's copyright free, I guess.

Another slightly awkward thing is that the response under the query says that the words who is "are very common and were not included in your search". However, I have to assume that it is the words "who is", and/or the question mark, that tipped Google off to the fact that I was asking a question.